October 8, 2009, 2:34 pm
In the last several years, governments ‚Äî and particularly those in Europe ‚Äî have been snapping up Open Source alternatives like little old ladies at Loehmann’s. The push towards Open continued this week as the Dutch police ditched Windows for the rosy cap.
Last March, the French Gendarmerie announced the dramatic reduction of its IT budget by 70%, thanks to the use of Open Source software, primarily in the forum of Ubuntu desktops, and with the help of OpenOffice and Thunderbird, among others. Around this time last year, the German Foreign Office revealed that it had implemented Linux desktops in over half of the nation’s 230 embassies and consulates, just one more in a long trail of German Open Source deployments, including the Ministry of the Interior, the state of Lower Saxony, and the City of Munich.
